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AUTHOR: 


NORTHROP,  CYRUS 


TITLE: 


LA\N  OF  GOD 


PLACE: 


MINNEAPOLIS 

DA  TE : 

89 


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PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC  MICROmRM  TAR G UT 


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171.1 
IT818 


Northrop,  Cyrus,  10J4-1922. 

The  lavr  of  God,  by  President  Cyrus  Northrop, 
May  29,  1090.    Minneapolis,  The  University 
press  of  iiiniiesota,  1090. 
p.    10^^ 


''The  baccalaureate  address  delivered  before 
the  graduating  class  of  the  University  of  Min- 
nesota." 

"Complimentary  edition." 


ResLrictions  on  Use: 


TECMNICAL  MICROFORM  DATA 


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■II*  ^,  A.-—  ^— <fci—jfci>fc- *^      J 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


i 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


BY 


President  Cyrus  Northrop 


] 


May  29,  1898 


MINNEAPOLIS: 

Ztc  "'Hr.ixcviit':  ^vca  uf  ttiunactt. 

1898 


n 


';I0 


Dept.of  Pliilosopliy 
Mar.  1,194=1 


Complimentary 
Edition 


II    III 


THE  BACCALAUREATE  ADDRESS 


DELIVERED   BEFORE  THE 


,     •    •      •    • 

.1     III    • 


GRADUATING  CLASS 
OF   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   MINNESOTA 


•  >       > 

I       I      I     )     i 


'"But  I  SUV  unto  you.  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them 
that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and 
pray  for  them  which  despitefuJIy  use  you,  and  persecute 


4 


vou. 


Matthew   v  .  44.. 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 

The  law  of  God,  as  it  relates  to  our  treat- 
ment of  personal  enemies,  is  clearly  laid  down 
in  the  closing  verses  of  the  Fifth  Chapter  of 
Matthew\  No  other  part  of  the  law  is  so 
hard  for  men  to  obey  and  obedience  to  no 
other  part  is  more  necessary  in  order  to  make 
men  Christ-like.  It  is  in  brief  this :  *'Ye  have 
heard  that  it  was  said  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth;  but  I  sa3'  unto  you, 
resist  not  him  that  is  evil;  but  whosoever 
smiteth  thee  on  the  right  cheek,  turn  to  him 
the  other  also.  Love  your  enemies,  and  pray 
for  them  that  persecute  you,  that  ye  may  be 
the  sons  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven." 

The  Christian  world  recognizes  this,  the- 
oretically at  least,  as  a  divine  command 
which  is  to  be  obeyed ;  and  whenever  a  Chris- 
tian admits  malice  and  personal  hatred  into 
his  heart,  and  cherishes  them  and  does  not 
make  any  effort  to  expel  them,  he  knows  per- 
fectly well  that  he  is  no  longer  in  a  state  of 
grace,  but  is  in  rebellion  against  God.  There 
is  undoubtedly  an  immense  amount  of  this 
rebellion  in  the  Christian  Church ;  but  that 
does  not  change  in  the  least  the  law^  of  God 
respecting  the  treatment  of  personal  enemies. 


i 


I 


* 


8 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


That  law  is  well  established  and  well  under- 
stood even  if  it  is  not  well  obeyed. 

But  a  question  of  a  different  nature  arises 
when  we  have  to  deal — not  with  personal  en- 
emies— but,  so  to  speak,  with  public  enemies, 
with  knaves  and  evil-doers,  who  may  be 
classed  as  the  enemies  of  all  righteousness, 
through  whom  all  sorts  of  corruption  are 
brought  into  society  or  the  Church  or  the 
State.  These  may  be  frankly  avowedly  evil 
men,  or  they  may  be  evil  while  pretending  to 
be  good.  What  is  to  be  our  attitude  toward 
these?  How  are  we  to  treat  them  as  individ- 
uals? 

According  to  the  commonly  accepted  idea, 
the  true  and  heroic  soul  must  be  ready  at  all 
times  to  defend  all  good  and  attack  all  evil. 
It  must  be  utterly  unselfish  and  self-sacrific- 
ing. It  must  be  on  the  alert  for  the  discovery 
of  objects  of  attack  and  objects  of  defense.  It 
must  be  untrammeled  by  circumstances  and 
conditions.  It  must  recognize  no  such  thing 
as  mere  expediency.  It  must  allow  nothing 
but  absolute  right.  In  short,  the  hero  must 
be  a  man  of  war  to  whom  peace  must  not  be 
permitted  till  every  enemy  of  right  and  justice 
has  been  subdued. 

That  under  this  definition  very  few  heroic 
souls  can  be  found  goes  without  saying.  Re- 
call your  own  experience  in  life  and  you  will 


-•f 


I 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD  9 

not  find  it  difficult  to  see  that  you  have  en- 
countered a  good  deal  of  wrong,  which  you 
have  not  only  done  nothing  to  prevent,  but 
against  which  you  have  not  even  borne  any 
special  testimony.  It  may  not  be  humiliating 
to  know  that  we  are  not  heroic  souls,  as  cer- 
tainly most  of  us  know  that  we  are  not;  but 
it  is  humiliating  to  live  in  the  midst  of  evilfor 
the  suppression  of  which  we  make  no  particu- 
lar effort  and  to  feel  all  the  time  that  we  are 
perhaps  not  only  cowardly,  but  also  guilty 
of  criminal  neglect. 

I  should  be  very  sorry  to  say  anything 
which  would  excuse  a  cowardly  neglect  of 
duty  or  let  men  feel  comfortable  while  they 
permit  all  manner  of  wrong  to  be  done  which 
they  possibly  might  prevent.  But  I  am  of  the 
opinion  that  even  the  holiest  of  wars  ought 
not  to  be  entered  into  without  discretion  and 
that  even  for  the  individual  in  society,  the 
highest  morality  permits  the  free  use  of  the 
tomahawk  and  scalping  knife  much  less  fre- 
quently than  is  supposed.  I  wish  to  throw 
upon  this  most  interesting  and  perplexing 
subject  of  a  Christian's  proper  attitude 
towards  wrong  as  embodied  in  bad  men  and 
bad  measures,  the  light  reflected  from  the 
teachings  of  Jesus,  the  world's  greatest  hero, 
whose  precepts  and  examples  alike  it  is  our 
highest  honor  to    follow.      I  shall    be   much 


10 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


disappointed  in  the  result  if  it  shall  not  ap- 
pear that  the  divine  Master,  whose  soul  in 
the  presence  of  evil  sometimes  flashed  with  a 
Sinai-like  righteous  indignation  and  at  other 
times  was  as  gentle  as  a  mother  with  her 
babe,  has  not  left  us  some  instruction  that  is 
not  entirely  in  accord  with  the  Christian 
world's  commonly  received  opinions  on  this 
subject. 

One  of  the  favorite  methods  of  Jesus  for  im- 
parting  truth  was  the  parable.  Everybody 
must  admit  that  His  parables  present  truth 
in  a  very  vivid  and  impressive  manner.  One 
may  easily  lose  the  connection  of  thought  and 
mistake  the  logic  of  Paul's  epistles.  But  no 
one  need  ever  miss  the  point  in  one  of  Jesus' 
parables.  The  simplicity  and  clearness  with 
which  they  are  expressed  cannot  easily  be  im- 
proved. They  so  perfectly  reflect  human  ex- 
perience in  all  ages  that  they  are  as  instruc- 
tive today  as  they  were  when  they  were  first 
uttered  by  Jesus.  One  of  these  interesting 
parables  is  that  of  the  tares  and  the  wheat. 
A  certain  man  sowed  good  seed  in  his  field, 
but  in  the  night  an  enemy  sowed  tares.  When 
the  grain  appeared,  the  tares  also  appeared. 
The  servants  of  the  farmer  were  much  disturb- 
ed at  the  appearance  of  the  tares  and  asked 
the  master  if  he  wished  them  to  go  and 
gather  the  tares  up.    But  he  answered  with 


11 


i 


great  wisdom,  -No,  lest  while  ye  gather  up 
the  tares,  ye  root  up  the  wheat  also  Let 
both  grow  together  till  the  harvest.  And  in 
the  time  of  harvest  I  will  sav  to  the  reapers 
gather  ye  together  first  the  tares  and  bind 
them  m  bundles  to  burn  them-but  gather  the 
wheat  into  my  barn." 

Now,  as  an  abstract  proposition,  tares  arc 
bad  and  they  are  especially  bad  among  wheat. 
Under  certain  conditions  nothing  wiser  could 
be  done  than  to  gather  up  the  tares  as  soon 
as  they  are  discovered;  but  if  thev  are  so 
mixed  with  the  wheat  as  to  be  not  easily  sep- 
arated, and  the  destruction  of  the  one  is^o  be 
the  destruction  of  the  other,  true  wisdom 
says,  wait  awhile. 

The  simple  statement  of  this  parable,  in  per- 
fect accord  as  it  is  with  Jesus'  practice,  illum- 
inates the  subject  we  are  considering.    What 
is  wanted  is  wheat.    The  question  of  tares  or 
no  tares  is  of  no  consequence  except  in  its 
relation  to  the  wheat.  If  to  root  up  the  tares 
IS  to  root  up  the  wheat  it  would  be  the  height 
of  folly  to  disturb  either;  and  if  bypossibihtv 
the  wheat  can  grow  to  a  mature  and  profit- 
able harvest  in  spite  of  the  tares,  then  it  is 
the  highest  wisdom  to  let  both  grow  together 
And  this  truth,  so  simply  drawn  from  the  or- 
dmary  operations  of  the  farmer's  field,  gov- 
ernments in  the  exercise  of  their  exalted  pow- 


f 


12 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


ers,  and  churches  in  their  disciplinary  zeal, 
and  individuals  with  more  of  the  zeal  of  the 
servant  than  of  the  wisdom  of  the  master,  all 
alike  will  do  well  to  heed. 

We  may  deduce  from  this  teaching  the  gen- 
eral proposition  that  we  may  not  do  even  a 
right  act,  nor  an  act  which  under  other  cir- 
cumstances would  be  a  positive  duty,  if  the 
outcome  is  to  he  injurious  to  the  Kingdomt 
of  God ;  or,  to  express  it  more  secularly,  if  the 
outcome  is  to  be  destructive  of  the  general 
good.  In  other  words,  Jesus  teaches  what 
Paul  taught.  All  things  are  lawful  for  me, 
but  all  things  are  not  expedient.  I  may  do 
things  or  refuse  to  do  things  on  the  ground 
of  expediency.  I  am  not  required  to  hit  every 
knave^s  head  that  I  see,  if  as  a  consequence  a 
number  of  honest  people,  including  myself,  are 
going  to  have  their  heads  broken.  Human 
society  is  a  very  complex  affair.  The  depend- 
ence  and  interdependence  of  the  parts  are  so 
complex  as  to  baffle  analysis.  Perhaps  there 
is  nothing  more  disturbing  to  the  peaceful 
working  of  this  organization  than  a  well- 
meaning  moral  lunatic  who  insists  on  his 
right  to  run  a  muck— who  rushes  here  and 
there  and  everywhere,  stabbing  right  and 
left  at  all  whom  he  encounters,  and  who  in- 
sists also  that  everybod  v  who  does  not  run  a 
muck  with  him  is  a  coward  and  a  knave.  His 


THE  LA  W  OF  GOD 


13 


fanatic  soul  never  pauses  for  an  instant  to 
consider  the  possibility  of  destroying  good  as 
well  as  evil. 

It  is  unquestionable  that  we  are  obliged  to 
endure,  with  what  patience  we  may,  a  great 
deal  of  evil  simply  because  we  cannot  get  rid 
of  it  without  bringing  on  others  a  great  deal 
of  undeserved  trouble  and  suffering  and  im- 
periling the  general  welfare.    Jesus  bore  in  sil- 
ence the  tyranny  and  injustice  of  the  Roman 
power  as  exercised  in  Judeaover  His  own  peo- 
ple, although  the  destruction  of  the  Roman 
power  and  the  liberation  of  the  Jews  was 
what  the  Jews  expected  of  the  promised  Mes- 
siah; and  the  silent  patience  of  the  Divine 
Master  has  been  a  power  for  good  in   the 
world  f:hrough  the  centuries  far  transcending 
all  that  could  have  been  accomplished  through 
open  denunciation  of  the  Romans  or  incite- 
ment of  His  countrymen  to  rebellion.    He  was 
a  reformer— but  not  a  destructive  reformer. 
The  evolution  of  goodness  was  what  He  was 
seeking,  and  His  silence  respecting  many  pub- 
lic evils  is  suggestive  alike  of  the  most  sub- 
lime patience  and  of  the  highest  wisdom. 

Every  thoughtful  man  who  looks  at  the 
world  as  it  is  today  must  be  impressed  by  the 
strange  blending  of  good  and  evil,  not  merely 
in  the  v^orld  as  a  whole,  but  in  its  various  or- 
ganizations,  and  even  in  the  character  of  in- 


14. 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


15 


dividuals.  No  matter  how  noble  may  be  the 
purpose  for  which  institutions  exist,  none  of 
them  are  found  to  be  perfect  in  operation; 
and  no  matter  how  grand  a  man  may  be  in 
his  character,  no  one  is  to  be  found  who  is 
not  more  or  less  like  Nebuchadnezzar's  image 
—some  part  of  him  at  least  clay,  and  there- 
fore, easily  broken. 

In  this  mixed  condition  of  human  society 
and  human  character  we  are  really  none  ofus 
qualified  to  pass  final  judgment  upon  our  fel- 
lows and  proceed  to  execution;  nor  are  we 
called   upon  to  do  so.      You  remember  that 
memorable  scene  recorded  in  the  eighth  chap- 
ter of  John,  where  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
brought   to  Jesus  a  woman  deserving  death 
under  the  law  and  asked  Him    what  they 
should  do  to  her,  and  He  answered :  He  that 
is  without  sin  among  you— without  this  sin- 
let  him  be  the  first  to  cast  a  stone  at  her. 
There    wasn't  any  such  man  in  the  crowd. 
They,  when  they  heard  Jesus'  answer,  being 
convicted  by  their  own  conscience,  went  out 
one  by  one,  beginning  at  the  eldest,  even  un- 
to the  last.    And  Jesus  was  left  alone  and  the 
woman  standing  in  the  midst. 

If  we  are  not  qualified  to  pass  final  judg- 
ment upon  our  fellow  men,  it  is  manifest  that, 
while  we  cannot  help  having  opinions  as  to 
people's  character,  we  are  under  no  obligation 


0 

4 


to  express  our  judgment  of  men,  even  bad 
men,  as  we  think,  and  to  vindicate  our  judg- 
ment by  our  own  acts— except  so  far  as  Jesus 
did— and  the  exception,  as  will  appear  later 
in  this  address,  is  a  most  important  one. 

In  general,  established  governments  are  to 
be  obeyed,  but  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the 
right  of  revolution.  But  this  is  not  an  un- 
quahfied  right.  It  is  not  permitted  to  every 
dissatisfied  citizen  to  raise  the  standard  of  re- 
volt, even  though  the  government  be  unjust 
and  oppressive.  There  must  be  a  reasonable 
prospect  of  success. 

Revolution  means  bloodshed  and  misery— 
an  awful  uprooting  of  wheat  as  well  as  of 
tares.  No  nation  should  be  plunged  into  this 
recklessly  without  any  prospect  of  bettering 
its  condition  after  all  its  bloody  struggles. 
So  that  even  in  matters  so  large  and  dreadful 
as  revolutions,  the  question  of  expediency  is 
a  controlHng  one;  and  the  would-be  revolu- 
tionists are  bound  to  inquire  whether,  as  a  re- 
sult of  their  plans,  more  good  or  more  evil  is 
Hkely  to  be  experienced.  And  if  this  is  true  of 
conflicts  with  organized  societ3^  or  govern- 
ment, it  is  not  less  true  of  conflicts  with  par- 
ties, churches,  and  individuals!  Conflicts  may 
be  entered  into  wisely  only  when  great  evils 
are  likely  to  be  removed  without  greater  evils 
being  produced.    A  church  suflers  from  the 


16 


THE  LA  W  OF  GOD 


presence  of  a  disreputable  member;  but  it  is  a 
good  deal  better  to  let  that  tare  grow  until 
the  harvest,  than  to  stir  up  a  church  quarrel, 
generally  the  fiercest  of  all  quarrels,  and  root 
up  a  great  many  stalks  of  wheat.  Let  both 
grow  together  till  the  harvest,  says  the  Mas- 
ter, lest  while  ye  root  up  the  tares  ye  root  up 
the  wheat  also. 

The  entire  history  of  persecutions  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Christian  Church  is  a  history 
of  attempts  to  root  up  supposed  tares  before 
the  harvest.    The  line  of  persecution  is  almost 
unbroken  through  the  centuries— Saul  verily 
thinking  he  ought  to  do  what  he  did  against 
the  Christians;   Catholics  persecuting  Prot- 
estants, and  Protestants  persecuting  one  an- 
other and  Catholics  when  they  got  the  chance 
—down  even  to  the  early  days  of  New  Eng- 
land, when  the  Puritans— not  the  Pilgrims- 
persecuted   Quakers  and   Baptists;    and  the 
echoes  still  come  to  us  from  ecclesiastical  coun- 
cils which  discipline  or  excommunicate  men 
for  differing  with  their  brethren  in  creed  or 
worship— the  power  of  putting  to  death  no 
longer  existing— and  as  one  travels  back  over 
the  ground  on  which  these  historic  events 
have  occurred,  it  is  painful  to  see  that  there 
is  much  more  of  wheat  wilted  and  shriveled 
in  the  sun  than  there  is  of  tares  uprooted. 
"No  half-way  measures,"  says  the  fanatic. 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


17 


"Perfection  or  nothing."  This  is  all  nonsense. 
It  is  not  Christ-like.  Tearing  everything  to 
pieces  is  not  Christ's  plan.  Because  C^sar 
gets  more  than  he  ought  and  God  less  than 
he  ought,  ''Down  with  Caesar,  and  give  him 
nothing,"  says  the  fanatic.  "Render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's  and  unto 
God  the  things  which  are  God's,"  says  Jesus, 
even  at  the  moment  when  Caesar  is  a  tyrant 
lording  it  over  Judea. 

Charles  A.  Dana  was  once  Horace  Greeley's 
assistant  on  the  New  York  Tribune.  He  ex- 
hibited the  same  characteristics  for  which  he 
was  noted  many  years  as  editor  of  the  New 
York  Sun.  Any  public  man  whom  he  had 
reason,  as  he  thought,  to  believe  to  be  a 
fraud  or  a  knave,  he  attacked  most  merci- 
lessly. His  victims  of  course  writhed  under 
his  attacks  and  they  and  their  friends  became 
enemies  of  the  Tribune.  Mr.  Greeley  stood  it 
as  long  as  he  could,  but  at  last  he  called  a 
halt,  exclaiming,  "Dana,  no  paper  on  earth 
can  stand  it  to  attack  all  the  scoundrels  in 
the  world." 

There  are  a  great  many  people  who  are  glad 
to  see  scoundrels  exposed  and  attacked ;  but 
there  are  not  ver^^  many  who  wish  to  join  in 
the  attack.  They  look  on  with  complacency 
because  the  attack  seems  proper  enough  and 
they  are  not  in  it  and  therefore  no  odium  at- 


18 


THE  LA  W  OF  GOD 


taches  to  them.     It  is  for  this  reason  that 
pohtical  reform  is  for  the  most  part  spas- 
modic or  a  failure.    Somebody  discovers  that 
reform  is  needed  and  he  tries  to  bringit  about. 
The  rest  look  on  perfectly   willing  that  he 
should  try  and  even  hoping  that  he  will  suc- 
ceed—but without  them.      He  does  try— gets 
little  sympathy  and  less  help-soon  finds  that 
the  forces  of  evil  are  much  more  compact  and 
better  organized   than   the  forces  of  good- 
finds  himself  at  last  defeated  and  alone-and 
retires  from  the  contest  with  a  firm  determin- 
ation that  the  next  man  who  tries  to  do  any- 
thing for  public  and  political  reform,  shall  be 
somebody  else  than  himself 

When   we    contemplate    the    condition    of 
thmgs  even  in  our  own  country,  or  shall  1  say 
especially  in  our  own  country ,\ve  cannot  fail 
to  be  impressed  with  the  undesirable  char- 
acter of  much  which  goes  on.     Briber v  and 
corruption  are  manifestly  dangerous  to  the 
republic.      This  is  a  representative  govern- 
ment.    We  cannot  meet  in  mass  conventions 
for  legislative  purposes  as  New  England  has 
so  long   done  in   her   town    meetings.     We 
choose  our  representatives.    They  with  the 
representatives  of  all  the  rest  of  the  people 
make  laws  and  elect  United  States  Senators 
who  help  to  make  laws  for  the  whole  country. 
Now,  if  the  representative  refuses  to  represent  ; 


THE  LAW  OF  (rOD 


19 


if  he  is  open  to  offers  of  pecuniary  benefit  for  his 
vote;  if  he  will  vote  for  the  candidate  for  sen- 
ator who  will  give  him  the  most  money  or 
offer  him  the  best  place ;  if  he  will  vote  for  or 
against  bills  for  public  acts  for  a  bribe,  he  has 
betrayed  his  constituents  and  set  an  example 
which  if  generally  followed  would  make  a 
farce  of  government  and  put  all  power  into 
the  hands  of  those  who  are  rich  enough  and 
corrupt  enough  to  buy  legislatures.  Such 
things  are  done  and  we  know  it.  Thc}^  are 
disgraceful,  of  course,  to  the  briber  and  the 
bribed.  But  what  are  you  going  to  do  about 
it?  The  man  who  bought  the  votes  has  his 
seat  in  the  United  States  senate  or  whatever 
else  he  wanted,  all  safe  enough.  The  man 
who  sold  his  vote  has  his  money  in  his  pocket 
— or  in  some  other  place  where  it  cannot  be 
traced — and  he  does  not  feel  a  bit  lonely,  for 
there  are  so  man}-  others  who  have  had  their 
pockets  lined  in  the  same  wa\'  that  he  has  no 
lack  of  companionship.  Nobody  doubts  what 
has  been  done.  Nobody  can  prove  anything, 
and  if  anybody  did  prove  anything  the  mat- 
ter would  be  whitewashed  and  he  would  have 
his  trouble  for  his  pains.  Such  things  go  on 
in  almost  every  state  in  the  union.  They  are 
disreputable,  wrong,  destructive  of  the  best 
interests  of  the  countr3^  You  regret  to  have 
things  so ;  but  you  are  busy  and  cannot  look 


20 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


closely  into  these  matters.      If  vour  own  rep- 
resentative is  guilty  you  will  see  to  it  that  he 
floes  not  get  nominated  again.   You  go  to  the 
next  caucus,  and  sure  enough    the  unfaithful 
representative  is  not  a  candidate.   A  new  man 
IS  up  for  nomination-apparentlva  clean  man 
-one  who  can  be  trusted.     You  are  delighted 
and  gladly   vote  for  him,  and  he  is  elected- 
butyou  learn  later  that  heis  the  twin  brother 
of  the  last  man.    Of  course  I  am  not  speakino- 
of  this  particular  legislative  district  in  which 
we  are  assembled.      I  need  not  sav  that   this 
district  has  not  been  represented  recentlv   bv 
that  sort  of  men.     I  am  speaking  of  what  is 
true  in  many  more  places  and  states  than   it 
ought   to  be;  and  1  am  calling  attention  not 
to  the  fact  that  so  much  briberv  and   corrup- 
tion   and  trading  exist,  as  evervbodv  knows, 
but  to  the  apparent  helplessness  of  the  people 
who  do  not  like  it  and  yet  do  not  prevent   it 
They  grumble  and  complain   and  call   hard 
names   and   then   let   things  go  till  the  next 
election,  when  they  generallv  go  to  the   polls 
and  help  elect  a  brother-in-law  of  the  twins. 
Now  the  trouble  with   many  reformers  in 
politics  IS   that   they   are  a   great   deal   more 
bent   on  pulling  up   tares   than  thev   are  on 
raising  wheat,  and   yet,  wheat  is  'the  only 
good  thing  to  be  got  and  if  there  is  no  wheat 
the  tares  do  no  special   harm.      One  saloon 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


21 


more  or  less  in  Sodom  w^ould  make  but  little 
difference.  To  illustrate — let  me,  without  of- 
fense to  any  one,  say  a  few  words  respecting 
what  so  man3^  people  profess  to  have  a  holy 
horror  of— the  machine  in  politics.  What  is  a 
machine?  It  is  "a  combination  of  bodies  so 
connected  that  their  relative  motions  are  con- 
strained, and  bv  which  force  and  motion 
may  be  transmitted  and  applied  to  the  pro- 
duction of  some  desired  effect."  In  mechanics, 
nothing  better  than  a  machine  can  be  desired. 
This  is  the  age  of  machines  and  a  machine  is 
always  more  than  a  match  for  untrained 
hand  labor. 

In  almost  every  state  and  every  citv  of  any 
size,  there  is  what  is  commonly  known  in  poli- 
tics as  "the  machine".  It  is  an  organization 
of  men  who  go  into  politics  more  or  less  as  a 
business.  They  give  time,  thought,  energy 
to  it.  They  all  have  a  common  purpose  and 
they  work  together  with  n  harmony  which 
makes  the  name  machine  eminentl}'  appro- 
priate. Sometimes  they  do  no  great  harm — 
they  simply  win  ^vhere  the  other  men  fail. 
The  reason  that  the  other  men  fail  is  because 
they  are  in  politics  only  in  a  half-hearted  wa}-, 
and  they  act  w^ithout  concert.  When  the 
time  for  the  caucus  comes  the  machine  is 
ready.  It  has  its  candidates  for  delegates.  It 
knows  just  whom  these  delegates,  if  elected, 


22 


THE  LA  W  OF  GOD 


Will  vote  for.    It  knows  whom  the  men  nom- 
mated  by  the  delegates  will  vote  for.     It  has 
a  complete  list  of  candidates  who  can  be  de- 
pended   on,    from   the  local  precinct  to  the 
United  States  Senate.     The  machine  has  been 
attendmg  to  this  business  all  the  time.     It  is 
a  compact    organization,    thorougnlv  disci- 
plined, knowmg  its  own  men,  able  to  predict 
the  result,  and  in  most  cases  sure  to   win. 
The  dissatisfied  element  outside,  good  citi- 
zens, reformers,  grumblers,  loud  advocates  of 
pure  politics,  have  no  perfect  organization,  no 
plan  that  is  worthy  of  the  name,  no  candi- 
dates who  are  more  than  halfhearted  in  the 
fight,  and  so  to  the  last  everything  is  at  sixes 
and  sevens,   a  great  deal  of  honest  purpose 
and  virtuous  patriotism  is  wasted-not  for 
anythmg  very  positive,  but  mainlv  to  smash 
the  machine-and  the  machine  wins.    There  is 
no  help  for  it.      The  regular  armv  alwavs 
beats  the  mob.     It  pays  once  in  a  g;eat  while 
to  expose  a  company  of  raw   militia  to  the 
hre  of  a  thousand  regulars,  as  it  did  on  Lex- 
mgton  Green  on  the  nineteenth  of  April  1775- 
but  m  the  ordinary  processes  of  war 'it  is  a 
criminal  waste  of  life.     And   in  politics  it  is 
hardly  less  a  criminal  waste  of  energy  and 
high  sentiment  to  array  against  a  compact 
political  organization  having  a  definite  pur- 
pose,  an  unorganized  mass  of  citizens,  with- 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


23 


out  discipline,  without  leaders,  and  without 
plans. 

If  men  want  pure  politics  and  honest  offi- 
cials they  must  give  systematic  attention  to 
the  matter,  and  not  trust  to  a  little  spirit  of 
excitement  just  before  election,  when,  in  all 
probability,  it  is  too  late  to  do  any  good. 
Eternal  diligence  is  the  price  of  honest  legisla- 
tion as  well  as  of  liberty. 

No  one  certainl\^  can  dislike  the  machine,  in 
its  ordinary  sense  as  a  combination  for  cor- 
rupt purposes,  more  heartily  than  I  do.  But 
a  machine  is  all  right  if  it  is  properly  used  and 
used  for  proper  purposes.  And  the  only  way 
to  fight  a  bad  machine  is  with  a  good  one. 
If  honesty  is  ever  to  win  in  politics,  the  men 
who  desire  it  must  take  their  first  lesson  in 
practical  politics  from  the  machine  and  or- 
ganize to  some  purpose.  And  until  people 
who  believe  in  honest  legislation  can  be  so 
banded  together  as  to  act  with  some  of  the 
efficiency  of  the  machine,  there  is  very  little 
use  in  the  individual  citizen's  trying  to  pull 
up  tares  in  the  field  of  politics,  except  it  be  for 
his  own  moral  exercise  and  growth. 

If  your  idea  of  a  proper  caucus  is  one  to 
which  men  shall  go  without  any  forethought 
as  to  candidates,  your  idea  will  never  be  re- 
alized. Somebody  will  have  thought  about 
it.    If  vou  have  not,  the  machine  doubtless 


24 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


has.  Organization,  concert  of  action  among 
men  of  like  minds  is  not  only  proper,  but  desir- 
able. 

If  the  object  to  be  secured  is  a  good  one,  it 
is  no  worse  because  there  has  been  an  organ- 
ized effort  to  secure  it.    Of  course  if  the  object 
to  be  secured  is  bad  and  the  machine  works 
for  it,  the  machine  is  bad  ;  but  it  is  so  because 
it  is  working  for  evil  and  not  at  all  because 
it  is  a  machine.   The  lesson  to  be  derived  from 
all  this  is  just   what   Edmund    Burke    said 
more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  ''When  bad 
men  combine  the  good  must  associate;  else 
they  w^ill  fall,  one  by  one,  an  unpitied  sacri- 
fice in  a  contemptible  struggle."     My  point  is 
this.   Be  earnestly  active  for  something  good, 
and  not  merely  active  against  something  bad. 
Keep  sowing  wheat,  and  do  not  confine  your 
energies  to  pulling  up  tares.    It  is  all  right  to 
remove  temptation  from  the  young  by  shut- 
ting up  saloons  and  gambling  dens  if  you  can; 
but  it  is  better  to  fill  the  minds  of  the  rising 
generations  with  high  ideals  of  noble  living 
than  to  spend  all  your  energies  in  removing 
temptations.      It  is  even  better  to  have  men 
w^ho  cannot  be  tempted  than  it  is  to  have 
no  temptation. 

Organize  them  for  the  attainment  of  the 
best  things,  and  not  merely  for  the  temporary 
suppression  of  bad  things.    There  \\\\\  be,  in 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


25 


spite  of  all  that  you  can  do,  a  good  many 
tares  growling  with  the  wheat  until  the  har- 
vest; but  it  will  be  a  poor  harvest,  indeed, 
even  if  you  pull  up  all  the  tares,  if  at  the  end 
there  is  no  wheat. 

There  are  those  who  sa3'  that  civilization 
and  even  the  Christian  Church  are  built  upon 
injustice  and  robbery,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
be  done  but  to  let  both  go  and  return  to  the 
simplicity  of  nature.      That  seems  to  me  a 
wholesale  rooting  up  of  the  wheat  in  order  to 
get  rid  of  the  tares.     Learning,  Science,  Liter- 
ature, Art  and  Religion  have  been  doing  their 
best  for  centuries  to  make  the  world   better  ; 
and  they  have  succeeded  in  evolving  from  the 
primeval    savage  the  modern  civilized  man 
and  from  the  primitive  selfish  degradation  the 
modern  methodical  and  systematic  care  for 
self  mixed  with  not  a  little  altruism  or  broth- 
erly kindness— and  now  our  modern  prophets 
want  to  destroy  civilization  and  all  that  it 
implies,  because,  forsooth,  some  people  own 
property  which  they  never  earned,   and  the 
members  of  the  Christian  Church,  unlike  their 
Master,  have  every  night  where  to  lay  their 
heads.    And  yet  these  prophets  sleep  regular- 
ly on  just  as  soft  pillows  as  the  rest  of  the 
Church,  and  draw  their  salaries  from  the  ac- 
cumulations of  civilization  with  as  much  reg- 
ularity and  zest  as  if  they  liked  it. 


26 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


THE  LA  W  OF  GOD 


27 


There  is  no  question  whatever  as  to  what  a 
man's  attitude  towards  all  recognized  wrong 
ought  to  be.  If  he  is  a  true  man,  it  cannot 
be  anything  but  an  attitude  of  disapproval. 
But  it  is  a  question  and  a  momentous  ques- 
tion what  he  shall  do  about  it.  Here  comes 
in  the  warning  of  Jesus,  "Lest  ye  root  up  the 
wheat  also.  Let  both  grow  together  until 
the  harvest."  Ah  !  there  is  to  be  a  harvest,  is 
there?  Be  comforted,  my  brother,  you  who 
have  vexed  your  righteous  soul  with  the  un- 
lawful deeds  of  the  wicked ,  like  Lot  in  Sodom — 
be  comforted.  There  will  be  a  harvest,  and  the 
harvest  comes  with  great  regularity,  some- 
times to  individuals  and  sometimes  to  nations. 
A  good  many  things  will  be  revealed  at  the 
harvest.  First,  it  will  be  found  that  the  tares 
are  not  wheat.  Second,  it  will  be  found  that 
the  Lord  of  the  harvest  does  not  value  tares 
as  He  docs  wheat,  and  next  it  will  be  found 
that  He  does  not  make  the  same  disposition 
of  tares  that  He  does  of  wheat.  There  comes 
a  time,  you  see,  when  tares  are  neither  mis- 
taken for  wheat  nor  treated  as  wheat.  Sup- 
pose you  do  not  dig  up  all  the  tares  3'ou  see. 
There  is  sure  to  come  a  time  when  the  tares 
will  be  got  rid  of.  The  harvest  is  a  great  dis- 
criminator. 

The  wheat  will  be  gathered  into  the  barn. 
It  is  valuable.      It  will  feed  and  sustain  men 


and  women  and  children.  The  tares  will  be 
burned — not  as  fuel — they  are  w^orth  nothing 
even  as  fuel — the3^  will  be  burned  not  to  do 
good,  but  simply  to  get  rid  of  them.  They 
are  worthless — worse  than  worthless.  They 
must  be  destroyed,  because  they  are  noxious. 
Bind  them  in  bundles  and  burn  them — and  the 
rascality  that  you  have  longed  to  fight  goes 
out  at  last  in  thecleansingflamesof  an  awak- 
ened public  conscience. 

Does  all  this  appear  like  lowering  the  stand- 
ard of  duty?  Is  a  true  life  substantially 
summed  up  in  minding  your  own  business? 
Well— a  good  many  lives  would  be  better  than 
they  are  if  they  were  so  summed  up.  But  that 
is  not  my  meaning.  I  have  not  yet  said  quite 
all  that  I  have  to  say.  There  is  one  further 
lesson  to  be  learned  from  Jesus  and  it  is  the 
most  important  one. 

Jesus  was,  indeed,  wonderfully  patient. 
Have  not  I  chosen  you  twelve,  and  one  of  you 
is  a  devil?  Jesus  let  Judas  stay  among  the 
disciples  as  long  as  he  would.  He  knew  what 
Judas  was;  yet.  He  did  not  turn  him  out,  ex- 
communicate him,nordoanythingelse  to  him 
of  a  disciplinar}'  nature.  If  He,  with  His  per- 
fect character,  could  stand  the  presence  of 
such  a  being,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  stand  it 
till  the  harvest,  if  it  is  necessary. 

But  with   all   His  tenderness   towards   all 


28 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


classes  of  men,  Jesus  never  left  the  wrongdoer 
in  doubt  as  to  His  judgment  of  the  wrong- 
doer's character.  Even  Judas  knew  that  the 
Master  understood  him. 

Jesus  treated  the  woman  of  Samaria  with 
great  kindness.  No  other  Jew  would  have 
talked  with  her.  His  disciples  were  aston- 
ished  when  they  found  Him  talking  to  her,  for 
the  Jews  had  no  dealings  with  the  Samari- 
tans. But  the  woman  did  not  go  away  with 
the  impression  that  Jesus  approved  of  her 
mode  of  life.  When  He  said  to  her,  **Hewhom 
thou  now  hast  is  not  thy  husband,"  she  knew 
what  He  thought  of  her. 

Do  not  so  associate  with  evil  men  as  to 
make  them  believe  that  you  think  that  they 
are  all  right.    Jesus  never  did  that. 

To  the  woman  condemned  under  the  law, 
but  at  whom  no  man  was  found  innocent 
enough  to  cast  the  first  stone,  Jesus  said : 
'^Neither  do  I  condemn  thee."  I  do  not  pass 
sentence  of  punishment  upon  \'ou.  But  "go 
and  sin  no  more,"  told  her  what  He  thought 
of  her  life  and  conduct.  God  forbid  that  any 
one  of  us  should  refuse  to  give  a  helping  hand 
to  man  or  woman  who,  having  been  bad,  re- 
pents and  tries  to  be  good.  For  them,  the 
message  spoken  in  kindness  must  always  be, 
**Go  and  sin  no  more." 

**He    receiveth    sinners    and    eateth    with 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


29 


^ 


^ 


h 


them,"   said   the   Pharisees.      Only  six  days 
before  the  crucifixion  they  said  of  Him  as  He 
went  to  the  house  of  Zaccheus,  the  chief  tax 
gatherer  of  Jericho,  *'He  has  gone  to  be  a  guest 
with  a  man  who  is  a  sinner."   They  would  not 
have  done  so.  But  He  did.  Was  He  less  opposed 
to  sin  and  crime  than  they  were?   But  He  did 
not  go  to  be  "hail  fellow  well  met"  with  sin- 
ners, whether  publicans  or  Pharisees.    He  as- 
sociated with  them  only  for  their  good,  and 
He  never  sought  to  curry  favor  with  them  b^^ 
pretending  that  He  thought  that  they  were 
on  the  whole  ideal  men.      The  Pharisee  who 
thought  he  was  doing  Jesus  great  honor  to 
admit  Him  to  his  table,  and  who  was  greatly 
disturbed  because  a  woman  who  was  a  sin- 
ner had  been  permitted  by  Jesus  to  anoint  His 
feet  with  ointment  after  she  had  washed  them 
with  her  tears  and  wiped  them  with  her  hair 
— receives  the  rebuke  he  deserves,  high-toned 
aristocrat  though  he  was.    "I  entered  into 
thine  house,   thou  gavest  me  no  water  for 
my  feet.     Thou  gavest  me  no  kiss.      My  head 
with    oil    thou    didst    not    anoint.      I    have 
received  at  your  hands  no  special  kindness 
and  hardly  ordinary  civility;  but  this  woman 
at  whose  presence  you  are  sneering,  has  with 
marvelous  tenderness,  unselfishness  and  liber- 
ality, more  than  supplied  the  defects  of  your 
self-complacent  hospitality.    Wherefore  I  sav 


i 


30 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


unto  thee,  her  sins  which  are  many — no  con- 
cealment of  that  fact  even  in  the  presence  of 
the  woman — which  are  many,  are  forgiven  her 
— for  she  loved  much." 

Jesus  was  the  friend  of  publicans  and  sin- 
ners, as  the  Pharisees  said.  He  was  a  helpful 
friend,  full  of  sympathy  and  kindness  and 
charity.  But  He  never  associated  with  them 
as  persons  with  whose  life  He  was  satisfied 
and  whose  character  He  approved.  He  met 
them  always  as  one  trying  to  lift  them  out  of 
evil  and  induce  them  to  seek  a  better  life.  In 
a  word  His  charity  was  no  bestial  indifference 
to  the  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  or 
between  honest  men  and  knaves. 

There  is  a  proper  time  for  pulling  up  tares, 
and  when  that  time  comes,  they  should  be  up- 
rooted. First,  in  the  development  of  our 
own  character.  If  thv  ri":ht  eve  offend  thee, 
pluck  it  out  and  cast  it  from  thee;  and  if  thy 
right  hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off  and  cast  it 
from  thee.  Second,  in  our  relations  to  others 
— whenever  the  results  will  not  be  injurious  to 
the  general  good.  And  third,  with  nations, 
whenever  humanity  demands  it  that  the  or- 
ganized power  of  Christian  states  shall  be  used 
for  the  relief  and  protection  of  the  oppressed 
and  down-trodden. 

Such  a  time  came  not  long  ago  to  Christian 
Europe,  when   Turke3^  had  filled  up  the  meas- 


^1 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


31 


ure  of  her  iniquity  by  the  murder  of  tens  of 
thousands  of  helpless  Armenians — her  own 
subjects.  But  the  Concert  of  Nations  of 
Christian  Europe,  silent,  selfish,  jealous  of 
each  other,  afraid  of  each  other,  stood  by  and 
permitted  the  Turk,  already  drenched  to  the 
shoulders  in  the  blood  of  Armenia,  to  proceed 
still  further  and  cut  the  throats  of  their  broth- 
ers of  Christian  Greece  in  their  heroic  but  use- 
less struggle.  Then  was  the  time  for  these 
nations  to  strike  a  blow  which  would  have 
avenged  the  wrongs  of  centuries.  Then  was 
the  time  for  the  rooting  up  of  tares  without 
the  slightest  danger  of  rooting  up  wheat — 
there  being  none  in  Turkey  to  uproot.  But 
Christian  Europe,  because  the  nations  could 
not  agree  and  a  general  European  war  was 
deemed  worse  even  than  the  murder  of  Ar- 
menians, reserved  its  strength  for  the  easier 
task  of  dismembering  and  parceling  out  China 
in  the  East,  and  left  the  unspeakable  Turk 
undisturbed  and  unpunished. 

It  has  been  reserved  for  the  young  republic 
of  the  West  to  set  for  Christendom  an  example 
of  a  foreign  policy  inspired  not  by  selfishness, 
but  by  generosity  and  real  nobilty  of  spirit. 

Our  country  is  now  engaged  in  a  war  with 
Spain,  entered  into,  so  far  as  appears,  with 
little  or  no  ^prospect  of  material  gain  to  our- 
selves, but  scileh^  -n  the  interc^tlof.  humanitv 


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32 


THE  LAW  OF  GOD 


—to  protect  the  people  of  Cuba  from  cruelty 
and  wrong  heaped  upon  them  for  centuries 
by  Spanish  oppression.  No  w^ir  was  ever  en- 
gaged in  by  any  nation  for  more  unselfish 
reasons;  and  if  the  God  of  Battles  shall  give 
the  victory  to  our  arms  on  sea  and  land,  as  I 
cannot  doubt  that  Ffe  will,  my  earnest  hope 
is  that  my  country  may  not  forget  the  high 
mission  of  mercy  in  which  it  is  engaged,  and 
may  not,  carried  away  b3^  the  lust  of  power 
and  glory,  convert  a  great  contest  in  the  in- 
terest of  humanit3%  which  ought  to  be  an  in- 
spiring example  to  Christendom  for  all  time 
to  come,  into  an  ordinary  struggle  for  wider 
dominion  and  the  gratification  of  unhol}^ 
ambition.    God  save  the  Republic. 


..  ...  •.'•.• 

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-*^-  ^         '     ■■'■■.Ji 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 

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171    I 


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AXISU3A  NH  viawmoo 


DEC  12 1942 


